Page 79 - Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales , A

Merely from the titles of the stories, I saw at once that the subjects were not less rich than those of the former
volume; nor did I at all doubt that Mr. Bright's audacity (so far as that endowment might avail) had enabled
him to take full advantage of whatever capabilities they offered. Yet, in spite of my experience of his free way
of handling them, I did not quite see, I confess, how he could have obviated all the difficulties in the way of
rendering them presentable to children. These old legends, so brimming over with everything that is most
abhorrent to our Christianized moral sense,--some of them so hideous, others so melancholy and miserable,
amid which the Greek tragedians sought their themes, and moulded them into the sternest forms of grief that
ever the world saw; was such material the stuff that children's playthings should be made of! How were they
to be purified? How was the blessed sunshine to be thrown into them?

But Eustace told me that these myths were the most singular things in the world, and that he was invariably
astonished, whenever he began to relate one, by the readiness with which it adapted itself to the childish purity
of his auditors. The objectionable characteristics seem to be a parasitical growth, having no essential
connection with the original fable. They fall away, and are thought of no more, the instant he puts his
imagination in sympathy with the innocent little circle, whose wide-open eyes are fixed so eagerly upon him.
Thus the stories (not by any strained effort of the narrator's, but in harmony with their inherent germ)
transform themselves, and reassume the shapes which they might be supposed to possess in the pure
childhood of the world. When the first poet or romancer told these marvellous legends (such is Eustace
Bright's opinion), it was still the Golden Age. Evil had never yet existed; and sorrow, misfortune, crime, were
mere shadows which the mind fancifully created for itself, as a shelter against too sunny realities; or, at most,
but prophetic dreams, to which the dreamer himself did not yield a waking credence. Children are now the
only representatives of the men and women of that happy era; and therefore it is that we must raise the
intellect and fancy to the level of childhood, in order to recreate the original myths.

I let the youthful author talk as much and as extravagantly as he pleased, and was glad to see him
commencing life with such confidence in himself and his performances. A few years will do all that is
necessary towards showing him the truth in both respects. Meanwhile, it is but right to say, he does really
appear to have overcome the moral objections against these fables, although at the expense of such liberties
with their structure as must be left to plead their own excuse, without any help from me. Indeed, except that
there was a necessity for it,--and that the inner life of the legends cannot be come at save by making them
entirely one's own property,--there is no defence to be made.

Eustace informed me that he had told his stories to the children in various situations,--in the woods, on the
shore of the lake, in the dell of Shadow Brook, in the play-room, at Tanglewood fireside, and in a magnificent
palace of snow, with ice windows, which he helped his little friends to build. His auditors were even more
delighted with the contents of the present volume than with the specimens which have already been given to
the world. The classically learned Mr. Pringle, too, had listened to two or three of the tales, and censured them
even more bitterly than he did THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES; so that, what with praise, and what with
criticism, Eustace Bright thinks that there is good hope of at least as much success with the public as in the
case of the Wonder Book.

I made all sorts of inquiries about the children, not doubting that there would be great eagerness to hear of
their welfare among some good little folks who have written to me, to ask for another volume of myths. They
are all, I am happy to say (unless we except Clover), in excellent health and spirits. Primrose is now almost a
young lady, and, Eustace tells me, is just as saucy as ever. She pretends to consider herself quite beyond the
age to be interested by such idle stories as these; but, for all that, whenever a story is to be told, Primrose
never fails to be one of the listeners, and to make fun of it when finished. Periwinkle is very much grown, and
is expected to shut up her baby-house and throw away her doll in a month or two more. Sweet Fern has
learned to read and write, and has put on a jacket and pair of pantaloons,--all of which improvements I am
sorry for. Squash-Blossom, Blue Eye, Plantain, and Buttercup have had the scarlet fever, but came easily
through it. Huckleberry, Milkweed, and Dandelion were attacked with the hooping-cough, but bore it bravely,
and kept out of doors whenever the sun shone. Cowslip, during the autumn, had either the measles, or some